A roundup of the top privacy news from the Asia-Pacific region

NSW Database Prompts Concerns

ABC reports on New South Wales police creating “a giant database storing more than 200 million photographs of cars using roads across the state.” In this feature, NSW Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Coombs comments, “To my mind, this issue raises things which are fundamental in the legislation, and that's about transparency and accountability.” Coombs has said she is “eager” to clarify how much data is being collected and stored, and whether the practice violates privacy law.Full Story

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Long-time barrister Stephen Wong Kai-yi has been appointed as Hong Kong’s next privacy commissioner, South China Morning Post reports. "I hope I could strengthen the work (of the commission) and maintain its high quality," Wong said. He also “stressed that it was important to protect the privacy of every individual as well as the free flow of information—which was a core value of Hong Kong,” the report states, adding he hopes “through education, Hongkongers could take ‘control’ of their ow...
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As cyber-attacks increase in Asia, experts like Trend Micro’s Tom Kellermann cite a “culture of silence” as well as the “deep-seated historical mistrust in the region (that) undermines true collaboration” as causes behind the trend, Bloomberg Business reports. “The vulnerability is the same in Asia as in the U.S. and Europe,” said FireEye’s Asia Pacific CTO Bryce Boland. “What’s different is, in Asia there’s essentially no disclosure requirement.” That means 42 percent of the world’s Internet us...
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In an interview with DPO Connect, Calvin Lam, the Personal Data Protection Commission’s call center manager, discusses the two-year-old organization’s most common questions while clearing up misconceptions. The Do Not Call (DNC) registry sparks the most confusion, he explains, as folks erroneously “thought that their telephone numbers would be automatically registered on the DNC Registry.” Lam also touches on the 2014 Provisions. “Some organizations think that the appointment of a DPO is optiona...
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At the 2015 ALP National Conference, NSW Labor member Jo Haylen called for reform of the country’s mandatory data retention legislation, arguing that the law asks Australians to "sacrifice their privacy supposedly for the sake of security,” CNET reports. “Proponents of metadata retention say those who do nothing wrong have nothing to fear, but these laws help create a culture of fear,” Haylen said, describing it as a “culture where we are all under suspicion and subject to heightened mass survei...
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The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) published an updated version of its Guidance on the Collection and Use of Biometric Data, clarifying “when it is appropriate to collect biometric data as well as the measures required to ensure its correct and safe processing,” Data Guidance reports. “What is interesting is that this Guidance seeks to stretch the concepts of personal data in the privacy law by distinguishing between different levels of sensitivity in personal data,"...
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